Hey grandaddy, I live around stanwell/gracemere area, just went back to have a look and thank the lord above the house hasn’t burnt down, fire still going strong all around the houses but seems alright so far. Yeah bang, thanks mate it was a scare, not to mention getting tail gatted on my way home by some young d**khead, I was on my bike so when I stopped on the loose rocks, I decided to deter him from tailgating again by “accidentally” dropping the clutch and might have thrown some rock on his Ute, i had a 20kl drive to get home to the mrs and my boy so I REALLY wasn’t in the mood for some idiot up my clacker. Haha

I have a mate living in Gracemere with his wife & young son. They got the order to evacuate, packed the car, and found it was gridlock before they got to the first intersection.

Turned around and went home; waiting until the traffic eases a bit. My mate has spoken to police, and advice is the immediate threat to his area isnt dire, so they are staying put until things change. In the mean-time, he was calming the nerves by cleaning out all his gutters, and wetting the crap out of everything.

They have the car in the driveway; ready to go, but are waiting until there's no other option. Mates theory is he still will do better in his house, than caught in the car in gridlock somewhere. Not much vegetation anywhere near his house, so maybe it will avoid them. He has a mate in the emergency services; primed to alert him the minute the situation turns worse.Looking like sleepless night for most of the people around Rocky; not envying them one bit.

Scarey s**t.

---------------------Sharing the extreme love with cats in Outback QLD

Yeah rod, we went back to have a look if our house was still there but I wasn’t confident to say yeah let’s sleep here tonight, just got word that the fire is now on our street, I’m praying it stays away.

A lot of over reaction from the QFES in the Caprornia area around Rocky. Kabra, Cracemere, western side of Rocky is all fairly level, open crassland plains, where the fire went though fast producing minimumal risk to life and property. Stanwell is nestled in the foothills of some fairly hilly, open forested country, that hasn't seen much in the way of ground fuel reduction burns for some years and did pose a higher risk. The QLD Govt, last night was patting itself on the back for how well "they" managed the evacutions of these rural communities, when in actual fact it was residents themselves who have their own evactuation plans because, despite what the Govt says, this sort of thing is an annual risk (to a greater or lesser degree) along with flooding and anything else nature throws at us, in most areas outside of the greater southeast corner of the State.Annual GFRB are done though out most of QLD's areas of risk because, at least until the last election we have had no Greens influence in the Govt.

Rifle stock and pistol grip reproduction. "legally obligated to be a victim in this country"

Yeah, that may well be in some areas of the State, but here around Rocky it wasn't. The situation described by Rod above was caused very much by over reaction. If the situation around here had of been any more than a fast moving grass fire, the Govt's emergency plan, which they are now touting as the model plan to use, will end up killing people. ATM there are still over 130 fires burning though out QLD, and not one person has been reported killed by them and property damaged is, by and large, minimal.

Rifle stock and pistol grip reproduction. "legally obligated to be a victim in this country"

It was a bit of an over reaction, BUT I have photos of fire 5-8 metres high less than 300 meters from my house and less than 50 metres from other house in kabra. I don’t usually applaud the govt but the SES and fire crews did an amazing job as far as I’m concerned the suits didn’t do s**t, the real hero’s are the firies.

Talking to my mate who also lives in the suburb-part of Gracemere(South of the town centre), he felt the media advisories were a gross over-reaction by people high up in Emergency Services, and the Pale-Chook Government.. The advisories caused a lot of panic, when a lot of those people either didnt need to evac at all, or could've done so much later safely. But authorities urged everyone to depart in the afternoon.

Mate was saying, he's up on his roof at ~7:30pm, theres NO sign of a glow anywhere, though a fair amount of smoke. Half an hour later, they get another "GO NOW!!" evacuation advisory. He rings his mate in the local rural fire brigade, and asks the status of the fire. Mate has knocked off; fire is considered under control. Mean-time, authorities, are still telling people to get the hell out of town NOW.There just wasnt the fuel around his area, to cause the sort of fires they were predicting.

Mate says there were definitely people around Gracemere and West who got touched up by the fires, but there were a LOT of people who werent ever going to be at threat from them. When I was reading the fire advisories early evening, the situation was deemed as bad as it can possibly get. Thats NOT what people on the ground, (both Police and Rural Fires) were saying, but thats what was being told to the public.Mean-time, the panic caused by the "Go NOW!!" directives seems to have resulted in a few accidents.

Pretty much sums up what happened here to Rod SES and Fire crews done a bonza job big knobs and pale chook as you put it next to useless It seems to me that in the eyes of the gov and big knobs that when it comes to guns and disasters human nature renders people stupidas they certainly won't listen to anybody not even locals

Alrighty guys, back in our house, fire took a guys house about 400 metres away, burnt it pretty bad, firies did an amazing job, thankfully everything’s fine now, got power back after 25 hours of it being down. Thank the lord haha.

Rod_outbak wrote:Talking to my mate who also lives in the suburb-part of Gracemere(South of the town centre), he felt the media advisories were a gross over-reaction by people high up in Emergency Services, and the Pale-Chook Government.. The advisories caused a lot of panic, when a lot of those people either didnt need to evac at all, or could've done so much later safely. But authorities urged everyone to depart in the afternoon.

Mate was saying, he's up on his roof at ~7:30pm, theres NO sign of a glow anywhere, though a fair amount of smoke. Half an hour later, they get another "GO NOW!!" evacuation advisory. He rings his mate in the local rural fire brigade, and asks the status of the fire. Mate has knocked off; fire is considered under control. Mean-time, authorities, are still telling people to get the hell out of town NOW.There just wasnt the fuel around his area, to cause the sort of fires they were predicting.

Mate says there were definitely people around Gracemere and West who got touched up by the fires, but there were a LOT of people who werent ever going to be at threat from them. When I was reading the fire advisories early evening, the situation was deemed as bad as it can possibly get. Thats NOT what people on the ground, (both Police and Rural Fires) were saying, but thats what was being told to the public.Mean-time, the panic caused by the "Go NOW!!" directives seems to have resulted in a few accidents.

First "go now" was issued at about 1500 hrs, schools were told to hold students for pick up by parrents, same with daycare centers, students at the two schools in Gracemere come from upto 30 - 40 km away (including the communities of Kabra/Stanwell) and most parrents work in Rocky, 10 km away. Texts were sent to parrents informing them of this. Then the d**kheads in Brisbane direct all roads to be closed inbound, not understanding that people had to go back to Gracemere to pick up students and other family members from the outlying communities. eventually they had to reopen the Cap H'way to two way traffic to Gracemere, but kept it closed to the other communities, to which they reopenned a back road to. This back road branches off the Cap and runs though the middle of Gracemere and has one school and one daycare center on it. however these d**kheads in Brisbane, in all their wisdom only wanted one lane of this road opened to two way traffic, keeping the other lane for emergency vechicles only. So you can see why your mate gave up and decided to stay put. Brisbane need to butt out and leave these things up to local authorities who have a better knowledge of local conditions.

Rifle stock and pistol grip reproduction. "legally obligated to be a victim in this country"

Michael08 wrote:Alrighty guys, back in our house, fire took a guys house about 400 metres away, burnt it pretty bad, firies did an amazing job, thankfully everything’s fine now, got power back after 25 hours of it being down. Thank the lord haha.

Good to hear ya come thru alright mate!

trekin wrote:Brisbane need to butt out and leave these things up to local authorities who have a better knowledge of local conditions.

Never have true-er words been written. And it doesn't just apply to natural disasters.